In today's news, we adopt a turtle, you should send some money to Larry Lessig (or a turtle), and PC gaming lives on! In your brain! No, seriously! A new PC Gaming Alliance combined with a mind-control gaming headset have PC gaming looking cool again. Also, Wii Fit is coming out in the U.S. on May 19, so start your diets then.

See this thread for a whole-buncha information on the wayward satellite,
chances of hitting Earth, info on the anti-satellite missile,
controversy surrounding the shoot-down, etc.:
http://forums.cnet.com/5208-10152_102-0.html?
forumID=97&threadID=281569&messageID=2690146

*Disclaimer: Shalin is not a missile expert, Shalin is not a satellite
expert, Shalin is not an anti-satellite missile expert either. But
Shalin does know some aerospace stuff that maybe helpful to understand
regarding the shoot-down of the wayward satellite.

Anti-Satellite weapons are not new.

Although they haven't had as much use or testing as conventional
weapons, anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons are not new--they've been around
for decades. The last known tests the U.S. performed were in the 80s.
ASAT weapons were basically conceived as strategic solutions to threats
(use of space as a battleground) during the Cold War.

As far as why three are being fired--one as a first shot and two "second
chances" seems the likely logic to me. Guidance systems are more
sophisticated these days, so I would actually expect the first shot to
be successful.

I don't think they'll be fired all at once. If they don't hit the
target, they'll likely be directed back through the atmosphere to burn
up, self destruct, or both.

It's disappointing to me that this shoot-down is going forward 'cause
it'll just create more debris up there that isn't really helpful.

Best,
Shalin

Molly's fears of falling satellites
Hey Tom and Molly,

I've been a long-time listener, but quiet responder, of the show and
after listening to Ep. No. 663 regarding the falling satellite and
Molly's fears. Well, you guys managed to bring out a "well actually"
funny-bone reaction. So here goes:

This message could be kinda long, so I won't be miffed if it doesn't
make it onto the podcast. ;-)

I work for an aerospace company in Exton, Pennsylvania called Analytical
Graphics (www.agi.com) that makes software that's used by engineers for
just this sort of situation. It's called, appropriately enough,
Satellite Tool Kit and outputs amongst other things a great 3D immersive
view of what's going on so you can get that really cool "Dr.
Strangelove" effect of riding the satellite all the way down to impact.
Think Google Earth with lots more math and science.

Predicting the impact for these types of events is tricky, and involves
equal parts of science and mystic voodoo, and a healthy dose of luck.
While many things can affect where the object will eventually come down,
there is, however, a property of the orbit of the vehicle, called it's
Inclination, that can pretty much tell us that it won' likely
come down on either the North or South Poles, ensuring that Santa and a
whole bunch of penguins won't have to evacuate. Christmas and Bumble
Happyfeet are safe for another year.

To further complicate the issue, the military intends to shoot the thing
down (similar to what the Chinese did about a year ago), voicing a
variety of reasons:

There is a distinct chance that the propellant tanks filled with
Hydrazine (nasty, nasty stuff) would survive reentry, spilling their
contents onto the house of some unsuspecting HD DVD owner, further
compounding his already mounting sense of misery. These tanks are built
Ford-tough and have a better chance of reentering intact than Apple has
of releasing Beatles songs on iTunes by the end of the Year. (Wanna take
that bet, Molly?)

Despite the 70 percent chance that the thing would come down in an
Ocean, the remaining 30 percent land mass happens to be fairly well
populated, raising the eyebrows of plenty of people--tax-paying people,
who've played more remote odds on the Super-bowl and won !!! 'Nuff said.

Just my personal opinion here: It's an election year, and people are
getting bored of the same-old-same-old. There's no doubt that our
exiting administration would like to do so with a little panache, and
since the Chinese did something similar about a year ago, no doubt
bruising some egos in the process, what better way to leave the stage
than with a good ol' shoot-em-down demonstration of where your tax money
has gone into the Missile Defense System. To Molly's fear of what
happens if they miss: I'd be more concerned about not getting your
money's worth on the guidance system of the missiles.

So, the decision of our fine military minds is to shoot the thing down
with a barrage of SM-3 missiles from a Navy ship floating off somewhere
in the 70 percent impact-area. All in the interest of public safety of
course. But since this is a newer, Joint-Forces, military, they'll
probably have to do it something along these lines:

The Navy will shoot the missiles from one of its ships.
Recruitment will go up: "Join the U.S. Navy & shoot down stuff the US
Air Force sent into orbit"
A Marine will push the button.
OOrah !! Semper-Fi !! Keep'n it simple with a big boom result !!
The Air Force will point to the right target.
"Second star to the left and straight on 'til morning". Thanks, Tink!!
Or: No!! Not that one!! The one on your right!! NOOoooo!!
Your other right!!

The Coast Guard will clean up the pieces--again.
(Those guys never get to do the fun stuff)

You'll notice that the Army was left out of the deal, probably because
those poor guys get enough target practice on a daily basis and have
better things to do than take pot shots at falling space junk.

One final serious note:

The comparison between the Chinese missile launch on their own satellite
about a year ago and what's gonna happen here is a natural one to make.
The big difference is one of altitude. They hit their bird high enough
that pieces from that explosion still continue to remain in orbit and
will continue pose a hazard to other (expensive) hardware probably for
decades to come. This shot will drop most of the debris within the
first 90 minutes, with most of the remaining stuff to come down a few
days later.

So if you want to put an Al Gore "green" spin on this, what the military
is doing is "better" for the environment by "releasing" the Hydrazine
safely at a high altitude in a cacophony of explosive delight. The
pieces will produce a nice oooooh-ahhhhhh effect for hours to come, and
we'll have proven that Missile Defense works!! Everybody happy!!

You can see some animations we produced on the Web site:
http://www.agi.com/corporate/mediaCenter/topStories/display.cfm?id=202
There's a media link at the bottom in case you want a snap, or the video.

Love the show and sorry for the run-along e-mail !!!

Cheers,
Frank

Satellite destroyed by missile already happened
Hello Jamoto,

Purposely destroying a satellite using a missile already happened on
September 13, 1985 when an ASM-135 ASAT air-launched missile carried by
a F-15 Eagle fighter jet was aimed at the malfunctioning Solwind P78-1,
a Satellite launched in 1979. ASAT stands for anti-satellite weapon.

On January 11 2007, China also destroyed a defunct orbiting weather
satellite.

This time, the missile will be launched from the USS Lake Erie that will
be located in somewhere in the Pacific ocean.

As per a CNN article, "The Pentagon said the U.S. Navy plans to try to
shoot down a faulty spy satellite with a modified antimissile missile on
Wednesday. It would be the first such maneuver in more than two decades--
and the first ever using sea-based missiles."

As you mentioned in Episode 663, the reason they're doing it is to
prevent the the dispersion about 1,000 of hydrazine. The article
says: "[...]the fuel tank probably would survive re-entry and could
disperse harmful or even potentially deadly fumes over an area the size
of two football fields. Hydrazine is similar to chlorine or ammonia in
that it affects the lungs and breathing tissue."

They also say: "The satellite is about the size of a school bus and the
missile will be aimed at its fuel tank, which is about 3 or 4 feet long."

At a cost of $40 million to $60 million for the whole destruction
operation, I'm sure (read: hope) that they know what they're doing.

CNN Article:
- U.S. to shoot down satellite Wednesday, official says:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/space/02/19/satellite.shootdown/

Love the show,
Giorgio from Montreal

DoubleTwist
While I'm always glad to see anyone stand up to the evils of DRM, I am
hesitant to recommend or support the method that doubleTwist is using.
DRM protected AAC is already a lossy compression format. When you (or an
application) plays that back and then re-encodes it to another lossy
format (MP3), you are transcoding.

This results in a significant and noticeable loss in audio fidelity.
In today's world of cheap storage and affordable audio gear, we should
be moving towards maintaining higher quality.

That said, I applaud DVD Jon's efforts and hope this will only provide
yet another chink in the armor of the evil Dr. M.

Matthew Kivett

Digital TV transition
I'm now listening to the Kojo Nnamdi show podcast from their "Tech
Tuesday" brodcast where they talked about the digital TV transition:

http://wamu.org/programs/kn/08/02/19.php#19289

The expert on the show indicated that when the transition takes effect
those currently having "basic" cable would need a converter box. My
understanding is that this is not correct; that analog broadcasts would
continue to work on cable for a while longer than the over-the-air
transition. When even the "experts" give wrong information, how is a
consumer supposed to deal with it?

Mike

I just love BOL! Sorry if it's weird to think someone drew you guys. Oh
yeah, sorry for not including Jason. Sorry for the apologies.

Chris from Pennsylvania

JaMoTo the turtle
Hi Buzz crew,

JaMoTo it is! I've updated the Web site with the new name. Just as a
reminder, the turtle map is here:
http://www.seaturtle.org/tracking/index.shtml?tag_id=80623

And you can find a photo of JaMoTo here:
http://www.seaturtle.org/cgi-bin/imagelib/index.pl?photo=3777

You can see the very small transmitter attached to her back (carapace)
in the photo. Tom should enjoy this. The transmitter sends a signal
every time it breaks the surface of the water, which is hopefully
received by one of a number of satellite-based receivers orbiting
overhead. The received messages are relayed to ground stations where her
position is calculated using the doppler effect (slight shifts in the
frequency of the transmission as the receiving satellite passes quickly
overhead).

An update on her progress. JaMoTo has stayed close to the nesting beach
since she last nested (and we tagged her) on February 13. This is a sign
that she will return to the beach and lay eggs at least one more time
this season. Leatherback sea turtles usually nest every 9 to 10 days,
and will lay four to seven nests, during the nesting season. We expect
that she will come ashore to nest again either tomorrow night or the
night after (Thursday or Friday night in Gabon time).

About the author

Molly Wood was an executive editor at CNET, author of the Molly Rants blog, and host of the tech show, Always On. When she's not enraging fanboys of all stripes, she can be found offering tech opinions on CBS and elsewhere, and offering opinions on everything else to anyone who will listen.
See full bio